Debt Issue Costs and Issue Characteristics in the Market for U.S. Dollar Denominated International Bonds

This paper analyzes the issue costs and initial pricing of bonds in the international market. In particular, we investigate the determinants of three components of issue costs: underwriter fee, underwriter spread (the difference between the offering price and the guaranteed price to the issuer), and underpricing (the difference between the market price and the offering price). Total underwriter compensation increases with the bonds' credit risk and maturity, but it is insignificantly related to issue size. Interestingly, underwriters appear to price some issue characteristics directly (by adjusting the fee) and other characteristics indirectly (by setting the guaranteed price). The two compensation components (fee and spread) are negatively related to each other. We provide evidence that this trade-off is consistent with income tax considerations, as well as with two-tier pricing by underwriters. We find no evidence of underpricing.     

Liquidity and price pressure in the corporate bond market: evidence from mega-bonds

Larger bonds offer greater liquidity, which should reduce their yields. A simple way for firms to reduce financing costs is to sell bonds with large face values. We find that mega-bonds are more liquid than smaller bonds. However, offering yield spreads on mega-bonds are not lower and are higher than spreads of bonds issued by similar companies. The discount applied to large new issues is consistent with price pressure effects that are also present in the secondary market prices of the issuing firm's existing bonds. Our results suggest a hidden cost to issuing very liquid bonds.     

Underpricing of seasoned issues

In this paper we provide a model of the underwritten offerings of new shares of seasoned securities. Our purpose is to explain why the offering price chosen by the underwriter is lower than the market price of the firm's shares. Our model recognizes the interdependence between the markets surrounding the announcement and sale of the new issue and recognizes as well the effect which asymmetric information regarding investor demands has upon the prices in these markets.     

Determinants of Contract Choice: The Use of Warrants to Compensate Underwriters of Seasoned Equity Issues

The issuer's decision to include warrants as compensation to underwriters is studied for a sample of 1,991 negotiated firm commitment issues of seasoned equity. Using a two-stage logit model to correct for self-selection bias, we find direct evidence that warrant compensation functions as a bond, substituting for reputational capital and enabling the underwriter to certify the issue price. To a lesser degree, the decision also is affected by regulations on underwriter compensation and on the use of underwriter warrants. Issuers' decisions are consistent with an objective of minimizing total underwriting cost, including cash compensation, warrants, and underpricing.     

The Economics of IPO Stabilisation,Syndicates and Naked Shorts

Stabilisation is the bidding for and purchase of securities by an underwriter immediately after an offering for the purpose of preventing or retarding a fall in price. Stabilisation is price manipulation, but regulators allow it within strict limits – notably that stabilisation may not occur above the offer price. For legislators and market authorities, a false market is a price worth paying for an orderly market. This paper compares the rationale for regulators' allowing IPO stabilisation with its effects. It finds that stabilisation does have the intended effects, but that underwriters also seem to have other motives to stabilise, including favouring certain aftermarket sellers and enhancing their own reputation and profits. A puzzling aspect of stabilisation is why underwriters create ‘naked short’ positions which are loss‐making to cover when, as is usual, the aftermarket price rises to a premium. We set up a model to show that the lead underwriter may profit from a naked short at the expense of the rest of the syndicate given the way commissions are apportioned between them. We argue that a naked short mitigates the misalignment of interests which stabilisation causes between issuer and lead underwriter, although it does so at the expense of the non‐lead underwriters.     

Underpricing of Newly Issued Bonds: Evidence from the Swiss Capital Market

The pricing of newly issued bonds on the Swiss capital market is investigated over the years 1980–1982. The results reveal a slight underpricing of new bonds at the issue date that is roughly equal to the difference in transactions costs between the markets for new and seasoned bonds. Underpricing is no longer observed when the new bonds start to be traded on the stock exchange, that is, after about two days. Tests of several hypotheses show that unexpected changes in interest rates over the offering period explain part of the underpricing.     

Determinants of Underwriter Participation in Initial Public Offerings of Common Stock: An Empirical Study

This paper examines an optimal underwriter participation model and develops testable hypotheses regarding the influence of certain factors on the degree of underwriter participation in initial public offerings (IPOs) of common stock. The issue of underwriter participation is important primarily due to the tradeoff between foregone underwriter compensation and underwriting risk reduction. The results of this paper indicate that factors related to the issue, issuing firm, underwriter, and IPO market conditions all are important determinants of the participation decision. Interestingly, the results also show that the importance of these factors is not consistent across underwriter prestige groups. In particular, factors external to underwriters (e.g., the issuing firm and market characteristics) are more important for explaining nonprestigious underwriter participation, while factors related to underwriters themselves play a more important role for explaining prestigious underwriter participation.     

Does proximity matter in international bond underwriting?

In this study, we analyze a sample of 3982 international bond issues from 31 countries to examine the impact of geographic proximity on the selection of lead underwriter in the international bond market. We find that proximate banks are more likely to lead underwrite risky bonds and non-rated bonds. On average, the total issue cost is lower if the lead underwriter is a proximate bank. The overall results suggest that geographically proximate banks have better access to private information about issuing companies. We also find that the cost reduction effect of proximate underwriting only appears in developed markets. In addition, this cost reduction effect is relatively weak in countries with a legal system that provides good investor protection.     

Underwriter warrants,underwriter reputation,and growth signaling

We present an alternative explanation of warrant use for underwriter compensation. We consider underwriter warrants as a signaling device to convey an issuing firm’s future growth potential and test this signaling role of warrant use by taking a direct approach in a seasoned equity offering (SEO) environment. Employing a matched-sample approach, we find that the use of warrants mitigates the negative price effects of SEOs. Specifically, the issuance of SEOs with warrant-based compensation has a significantly less negative impact on abnormal return performance than the issuance of SEOs with cash-based compensation. The results of logit regressions confirm this linkage. We further find that this less negative impact on firm value is attributable to the signaling value representing the issuing firm’s future growth prospects through warrant compensation even in the presence of underwriter reputation variables. These results suggest that firms with greater growth prospects benefit more by issuing SEOs with warrant compensation than with cash compensation. Overall, our results support the growth signaling effect of warrant compensation as an additional role of underwriter warrants in the SEO market.

A Reexamination of the Costs of Firm Commitment and Best Efforts IPOs

Ritter [14] documents that best efforts IPOs are, on average, more costly to issue than firm commitment IPOs. This paper explains the phenomenon. Two component costs of going public are analyzed: underpricing and underwriter compensation. The model, based on a disagreement about firm value between underwriters and issuers, shows that underpricing is higher for firms using best efforts contracts as these firms, on average, are more speculative. Underwriter compensation is hypothesized to be higher for firms using best efforts contracts because of the high costs of market making for these firms in the aftermarket and the high distribution costs associated with the high risk of a failed offer. Empirical tests strongly support the propositions.     

The market for borrowing corporate bonds

This paper describes the market for borrowing corporate bonds using a comprehensive data set from a major lender. The cost of borrowing corporate bonds is comparable to the cost of borrowing stock, between 10 and 20 basis points, and both have fallen over time. Factors that influence borrowing costs are loan size, percentage of inventory lent, rating, and borrower identity. There is no evidence that bond short sellers have private information. Bonds with Credit Default Swaps (CDS) contracts are more actively lent than those without. Finally, the 2007 Credit Crunch does not affect average borrowing costs or loan volume, but does increase borrowing cost variance.     

Underwriter Reputation,Issuer Ownership,and Pre‐IPO Earnings Management: Evidence from China

This paper investigates the correlation between pre‐initial public offering (pre‐IPO) earnings management and underwriter reputation for issuers with different ownership structures in China. We document a significantly inverse relationship between underwriter reputation and pre‐IPO earnings management for non‐state‐owned enterprises (NSOE) issuers only, while no significant association is found for state‐owned enterprises (SOE) issuers. We also find that for the NSOE new issue market, underwriter reputation is positively correlated with issuer post‐IPO performance indicating that prestigious underwriters can incrementally improve issuer post‐IPO performance.     

Duration of IPOs between offering and listing: Cox proportional hazard models—Evidence for Chinese A-share IPOs

This paper estimates the duration from offering to listing of Chinese A-share IPOs issued from 1994 to 2005. We firstly compare the effects of the two issuing systems on the length of this duration and find that the waiting time to listing has been shortened greatly after the Approval System is adopted. Secondly, this study emphasizes on exploring endogenous factors related to an issuer itself, including the issuer's quality, market sentiment, allocation mechanism, and underwriter, etc. Then a Cox proportional hazard model is employed to examine these factors' influences on this issuer's final listing. Further, this paper extends the analysis to explore the role of the issuing system and issuing year respectively. Most endogenous factors are found to still be functioning when we take into account the effect of the issuing system, but the effects of underwriter, allocation mechanism, offering price and floatation size diminish in favour of the effect of issuing year.     

Laddering in initial public offerings

Laddering is a practice whereby the allocating underwriter requires the ladderer to buy additional shares of the issuer in the aftermarket as a condition for receiving shares at the offer price. This paper identifies factors that create incentives to engage in this type of manipulation and models the effect of laddering on initial public offering (IPO) pricing. I show that laddering has a bigger effect on the market price of IPOs with greater expected underpricing (without laddering) and greater expected momentum in the aftermarket; laddering increases the IPO offer price, the aftermarket price, and the money left on the table but does not necessarily increase the percentage underpricing; laddering contributes to long-run underperformance and creates a negative correlation between short-run and long-run returns; and profit-sharing increases the extent of laddering and the percentage underpricing.     

THE DISPERSION OF BIDS ON INDIVIDUAL NEW MUNICIPAL ISSUES

This paper examines the determinants of the dispersion of interest rates bid on competitively sold, new municipal issues. Theory suggests that the dispersion of prices (interest rates) on a new municipal issue depends on the expected costs and benefits of underwriter search on that issue. The greater the expected costs and the lower the expected benefits, the smaller will be underwriter search and the greater will be municipal interest rate dispersion. For empirical testing, the expected costs and benefits of underwriter search are measured by characteristics of the bond issue, the bond issuer, and the market conditions. The empirical tests suggest that the theory holds.     

Do you really want to ask an underwriter how much money you should leave on the table?

This paper analyses whether the owners of companies seeking to list will leave less money on the table if underwriters are employed to price and market the issue. Our findings indicate that limited liability and Industrial company initial public offerings (IPOs) that have used underwriters have left more money on the table than those not employing underwriters. Not only is there a direct cost in employing an underwriter but this study suggests there might also be an indirect cost. We also find that a positive forecast earnings per share yield may be useful in reducing the amount of money left on the table.     

Underwriter reputation and IPO underpricing: The role of institutional investors in the Chinese growth enterprise market

This paper investigates the effects of underwriter reputation on initial public offering (IPO) underpricing in the Chinese Growth Enterprise Market, in light of the conflicting evidence in the literature on IPO underpricing. Using data during the post global financial crisis period, we find that IPO firms with prestigious underwriters have lower market-adjusted initial returns on average. We further find that prestigious underwriters reduce IPO underpricing by minimizing the time gap between the offering and listing, choosing high-quality firms to underwrite, and reducing information asymmetry between issuers and investors. In the presence of institutional investors, however, we find that more underpricing occurs, as these investors tend to obtain access to IPO shares at a higher price discount via private placements. This new finding suggests that the institutional investors have a role to play in the case of high under-pricing, which partly gets corrected via underwriter reputation.     

Tests for Price Effects of New Issues of Seasoned Securities

Do new issues of seasoned securities cause significant price movements in the neighborhood of the issue day? This paper presents an empirical comparison of three competing hypotheses: the SEC view that a new issue causes a permanent price decline; the underwriter view that there is only a temporary price decline during the distribution period; and the efficient market hypothesis (EMH) that implies the absence of any price effects. Several empirical tests of the competing hypotheses using data on new issues of utility stocks traded on the NYSE reject the SEC and underwriter views in favor of the EMH.     

Intended Use of Proceeds,Underwriter Quality and the Long‐run Performance of SEOs in the UK

We document that prospectus disclosure of (i) the motives for a seasoned equity offering, and (ii) the choice of underwriter explain the long‐run performance of equity issuers in the UK. Firms citing investment needs show no abnormal performance after the offering and have higher investment rates post‐issue compared to the period before the offering. Issuers that state general corporate purposes and recapitalisation motives underperform, have similar investment rates pre‐ and post‐issue, and their leverage tends to increase after the offering. Further, consistent with the certifying role of underwriters, equity issues underwritten by high‐quality brokers show no evidence of post‐issue abnormal returns, but offerings taken public by low‐quality underwriters exhibit negative abnormal performance. Together, our results document the significant role that prospectus information on the intended use of offering proceeds and on the underwriter play in predicting issuers post‐offering performance in the UK.